GIORGIANA PALLAMARA – REMLA – PROJECT PROPOSAL

My interest in the archive of the Royal Engineers Museum, Library and Archive (REMLA) is due to its heart full of history and past, becoming then a place between past and present, a bridge in time.
I strongly think that a man without history will inevitably disappear, like a shimmer of light. That’s why my idea is based on making the past alive, again. We are surrounded by our past, in every detail; I think it’s humanity’s signature. We wouldn’t be what we are or aren’t today without it. Therefore, I think it is better to exhume old memories, photos, letters, books, from time to time. What I intend to do with my project basic idea, is to convey the past in a colourful way, through the help of media and digital means, such as montage and juxtaposition.

During the days spent in the REMLA’s library, we’ve been introduced to a lot of material and to a big archive, and the ideas for our projects just came along while discovering more and more. The Archive holds photographs from the last 160 years dating back to the 1850s: the material goes from negatives to printed cyanotypes, video and audio recordings and albumen prints.
I am really happy that I chose and that I have been accepted to work with the REMLA, because I had the opportunity to touch with hands the history that I studied in High School from books. It’s really something that made me think about the importance of knowing about our origins and especially, other people’s origins. This, in order to understand better the world and be open minded, to get always to see the beautiful and recreate it through our perspective.

I chose these pictures underneath among others of a wide book regarding different campaigns conducted by England during The Great War, between the years 1914-1916.